Thursday, January 10, 2008

Singtel - not such a smooth operator afterall

I took the opportunity to re-examine my triple play needs recently due to the relocation as well as the fact that the house will be occupied most of the time from here on. Decided to go with Singtel for its cheap 1Mbps Broadband plus its flexible MioTV package (residential line is a given). Also took the opportunity to grab myself a pair of cheap homeplugs under their MioTV promotion (~$50 for a pair of Homeplug AV!). I thought I had it all planned out until the MioTV installer came today.

First bad news. The package does not come with a HDMI cable! What? You can't even throw in a cheap brandless HDMI cable that cost less than $30!? Ok, so I settled for the lesser component video and separate audio plugs (contributing to my cable mess along the way).

Second bad news. Apparently, going with the standard Ethernet modem package (since I already have a wireless router, I did not choose the more expensive wireless modem) means you cannot watch MioTV and get online at the same time! WTF?! According to the technician who did the install, its because of bandwidth issues. Yeah right. A quick search on Google shows that it is technically possible... but just a lot of tweaking and configuration to be done (i.e. setting the modem in bridge mode, configuring the PPoE settings in the wireless router, etc).

Why am I pissed? Well, because I expected to be told about such a big issue/limitation as (2) at the point when I sign up/choose the package. Not a week later when I can no longer switch packages. So now, if I want a fuss free solution, my only option is to buy an "approved" wireless modem thus rendering my 1 week old ADSL modem useless. Otherwise, I will have to waste time trying out the various "fixes" that's floating around the Internet. Sigh... what joy...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Same thing happened to me, installer came and told me I couldn't use internet and watch tv simultaneously. That was totally ridiculous...

Sidney said...

Well, if it helps, you can try out one of the solutions listed here